Spanning & Buoyancy

Span

The task: beginning with a flat piece of 22" x 30" cardboard (and without removing any of its material during transformation), some music wire and a non-stretch fabric, figure out a way to decrease the cardboard to at least half its size.

The solution: A folded system in which the tension of the music wire held in place with a piece of fabric closes the scored geometry of the cardboard. It later transformed into a challenge of flatness in spanning; how flat can the fabric span if only supported at its center point? What other reinforcements will it need?

Iteration 1: How much fabric is necessary?

Iteration 2: How flat can it be?

Iteration 3: Achieving flatness of a canopy that is centrally supported rather than supported by its edges.

Sketches for the spans

Equilibrium and Buoyancy

The task: Take a 16" x 16" x 2" piece of blue foam and create a wooden addition to raise one corner of the foam off the surface of water when suspended in it. Then remove and relocate a portion of the foam block to bring the foam back into equilibrium with all four corners touching the water in a parallel fashion.

The solution: A clamping block made from scrap wood,was created to hold the corner of the foam. To reverse the effects of its weight, the opposing 'x' was taken from the foam and placed underneath to rebalance the block.

Second iteration: Bringing back the flat span; how could you make a perfectly flat span? It ended up being harder than I thought, especially with a completely rigid structure instead of the cardboard. However, the integration of the centrally supported spanning system allowed a new innovation in how these flat surfaces could be constructed; with the music wire as both the structural, lofting component, but also the rigidity necessary to prevent the corner of the fabric from flopping.